THE COMMITTEE ON " GENERAL " BOOTH. 1' G ENERAL" BOOTH
has passed through his"Panama Inquiry " with his personal character unsmirched. It was necessary, however, that the inquiry should be made, and inevitable that it should be made in a way that must have been highly offensive to the whole Booth family, who are beginning, perhaps, to be a little spoilt by their long posses- sion of authority in a highly inflaential religious organisa- tion. So long as Mr. Booth was only the dictator of a sect, his disposal of the property of that denomination was hardly matter for public discussion, much less public inquiry. If the members liked to allow him autocratic authority over the religious organisation of the sect, to dispose of its funds as he pleased, and to exercise its great patronage at his own discretion, no one outside the body had any clear right to interfere. Nobody does interfere with any Monastic Order as to its disposal of its funds. Nor did there appear to be any reasonable ground for in- terference. The creed of the body was the creed of many other bodies of Christians ; though its ritual was grotesque, it was neither blasphemous nor indecent ; and the conduct of its members was, as regards outward morality, regu- lated rather by an overstrained asceticism—for example, in the matter of tobacco—than by any idea which could be reasonably expected to result in laxity. A great deal -too much was made by the officers of the Army of mere emotion ; but then the Protestant sects outside the Anglican Church have always displayed that tendency, and there is no more harm in "conversions," as they occurred in Salvation Army meetings, than in conversions as they occurred during Whitfield's sermons on the hill-side. The constitution of the sect was, it is true, monarchical, which is, in England, a distrusted arrangement ; but Wesley also was, in practice, king while he lived, and there is nothing in the principle which is of itself immoral, while its application to a Protestant community furnished a most interesting and useful experiment. When, however, the "General," quitting the strictly religious ground, offered to show a way by which the social problem might be solved, and asked for £100,000 down and £30,000 a year in order to lift the "submerged tenth" out of their slough, the situation was materially changed. A man may reasonably ask the world at large for money to be spent on a certain object at his own discretion, but if he asks it, and receives it, he owes to the world some evidence that he has spent it on that object and no other. Blunders are in the contract, but malversation is not. As it happened, just when the demand was made, the "General," who has naturally many enemies, became exposed to a rain of hostile criticism. A host of writers, some of them very able, accused him and his family of luxurious living, of arrogance of demeanour, of interested despotism in arrangements for the custody of property, of "regal" extravagance in iourneyings, and of deliberate concealment of accounts. One of these charges, moreover—that of regal extravagance in locomotion--looked on the surface true ; while another, concealment of accounts, was supported by some very curious figures. An inquiry became indispensable, if sub- scriptions were to continue, and the " General " met the demand with a courage and temper for which he deserves the highest credit. A Committee of Investigation was appointed, of whose competence it is only necessary to say that Sir Henry James was the Chairman and Mr. C. Hob- house the Secretary; and the "General " not only produced his books, and dave every facility to the inquiry, but pro- mised in his own name and those of all whom he could influence, that he would take no legal proceedings against any witness who might give evidence before the Com- mittee. All libellers might libel as they would, just as if they were addressing a Parliamentary Committee. The gentlemen engaged, therefore, enjoyed full powers, and. had at their head one of the shrewdest men and most terrible cross-examiners in the Kingdom. The result has been what any one who has watched " General " Booth and his methods might have anticipated. Neither the" General" nor his family have drawn anything whatever from the large amount, £120,000, subscribed for the experiment. The Committee's decision upon this point is clearness itself :—" In examining the accounts, the Com- mittee were careful to inquire whether any portion of the travelling expenses of the members of the Salvation Army had been borne by the 'Darkest England' Fund, and whether Mr. Booth or any of his family have drawn any sums for their personal use therefrom. No such expenditure appears to have been incurred. There is no reason to think that Mr. Booth or any member of his family derive, or ever have derived, benefit of any kind from any of the properties or money raised for the 'Darkest England' Scheme. Some members of Mr. Booth's family draw salaries from the spiritual wing of the Salvation Army, and a list was put in from which it appears that Mr. Booth himself has received nothing from either side of the Salvation Army. He has a small income partly settled on him by a personal friend and partly derived from the sale of his literary works, the amount and nature of which he explained to the Committee, and which seemed to them com- mensurate with the maintenance of his personal establish- ment." Considering the capacity of the men who sat on the Committee, and the entire freedom of its Chairman even from bias in favour of the Salvation Army, that is amply sufficient even for those who cannot see that no vulgar rogue intent on cash could have acquired the " General's " in- fluence, or would have dared to excite suspicion by claiming such absolute authority. Your hypocritical thief always shelters himself behind a Committee or a Board, and carries out his frauds under cover of a cloud of per- functory signatures given by men who think they have investigated when they have simply received assurances from the robber that everything is straight. The Committee have had the books scientifically examined, they have inspected all the departments in person, they have cross-examined the "General," and they pronounce him absolutely clean. Nevertheless, they point to a weak place in his business arrangements. If he were inclined to steal, he could steal. He would be liable to the ordinary penalties of theft, but still he could steal if he would. His authority is absolute, and all property is vested in practice unreservedly in him ; and, of course, if he chose to sell it all, and bolt to Mexico with the proceeds, he could, if not arrested at once on information which would not be forth- coming, accomplish that flight in safety. That situation seems to us to result from the very principle of the Salva- tion Army organisation, which is strictly monarchical, and, what is more important, to have been intended by the subscribers to the Fund. The Committee, however, though they quite perceive and acknowledge this, cannot, being Englishmen, reconcile themselves to the conditions of autocracy, and make, on this point, a rather weak sugges- tion. "So far, the objects of the donors would apparently be carried out. But the hypothesis above referred to still remains to be dealt with. It is possible that a 'General' may be forgetful of his duty and sell property, and appropriate the proceeds to his own use, or to meet- ing the general liabilities of the Salvation Army. As matters now stand, he, and he alone, would have con- trol over such a sale. Against such possibilities it appears to the Committee to be reasonable that some check should be imposed. Whilst it seems necessary that the fhating and current cash should be at the absolute disposal of the General' of the Salvation Army, and whilst it would be inexpedient to interfere with the exercise of his discretion when dealing in accordance with the terms of the deed- poll with the real property and investments, yet it is de- sirable that the two last-named classes of property should be held in the names of independent trustees." That means, we presume, that no sale should be complete without the consent of the "independent trustees," but that, when such consent is given, the " General " of the future is to expend the cash resulting from such sale at his own discretion. Is not that a little absurd ? If the trustees' powers are limited in that way, their appoint- ment is only an unreal security to subscribers ; while, if they can do more, the monarchical principle is given up, and the experiment ends in avowed failure. We confess we think that, if so much power is to be left to the "General," it is better to leave him all, and try the experi- ment straight through to the sweet or bitter end. There is hope of a sort in it, if left to individual genius, but there is none, if control over one more charitable agency is to be transferred to one more charitable committee. Such committees are useful for defined work ; but original plans, philanthropic audacity, "superhuman energy," will never be got out of any body of the kind. We would either transform, that is, extinguish, the Salvation Army, or we would leave the "General" its czar.
We say this clearly, though we have the most imperfect confidence in the business capacity of "General" Booth. He seems to us, like every other despot who ever lived, except Augustus Ctesar and Frederick the Great, to be a bad economist, to fix his eyes upon his object, and to be more or less reckless whether he has, or has not, the means to carry out his large ideas. In this very enterprise he is some £60,000 to the bad already, and but that he can borrow funds from the Salvation Army, would have been brought to a deadlock. He has, no doubt, after his experience, a right to reckon on subscriptions, as a Chan- cellor of the Exchequer reckons on revenue ; but he anticipates revenue too boldly, and will land himself and his Army some day in a dangerous deficit. He is working on monarchical principles, and has not the least right to as- sume that the "General" whom he is to nominate will attract the same loyalty, or the same confidence as himself. He is able to order a "week of self-denial " which produces thou- sands of pounds ; but an unpopular successor would hardly collect hundreds of pounds by the same device. He is able to ask for and obtain £30,000 in a year by a simple appeal to the benevolent ; but a distrusted successor would not, on the same personal security, get thirty thousand farthings. He ought to keep a surplus, if only to avoid borrowing ; or if that is opposed, as we fancy it is opposed, to the universal experience of philanthropic societies, he ought never to be more than three months' expenditure in debt. Excellence of intention is an imperfect excuse for reckless- ness in expenditure. Nor, as yet, can we honestly say that he gets enough for his money. It is not fair, the Committee say, to test the results of the farm-colony before the buildings have been fully used, and before the different experiments—drainage, fruit-growing, &c. —have had time to show their results. But " General " Booth has expended his money with as yet inadequate returns. He has spent £216,000, and for that great sum has established some useful Shelters in London ; has taught a number of the lowest roughs to chop wood, which has been sold at prices that close this trade to other choppers, thereby creating " lost " workmen, while redeeming " slum- mers ;" has started a farm which may one day employ six hundred persons, but does not yet pay expenses ; and has begun to start an "Over-sea Colony" in Canada about which nobody seems to know anything clearly, and which is, we presume, as yet mainly an idea. Is all that an adequate return for the large quantity of money and immense supply of energy expended? We will not say it is not, for we agree with the Committee that sufficient time has not yet elapsed ; but we certainly suspect that "salvation" on "General " Booth's lines costs too much, and that all we gain from him is an organisa- tion which certainly has coerced about eight hundred "slummy" subjects into comparative industry and order. On the whole, and allowing for the necessary incomplete- ness of the evidence, our judgment would be this. The charitable of London may rely on it that General Booth will steal nothing out of their subscriptions. They may also rely on it that he will energetically strive to shelter and reform a limited number of " slummy " subjects, and turn them into industrious citizens fit to get along by themselves, as all decent workmen are already compelled to do. But, at the same time, they are not justified in emptying the charity reservoir of London—which is an absolutely fixed quantity—for the benefit of " General " Booth's organisation, without satis- fying themselves by careful reading and inquiry that they know pretty nearly how much each " disrespectable " costs under that system before he becomes a "saved" member of society. If, when they have read the evidence, they believe in the "General's" management, then they may subscribe if they will, for about his honesty and his energy there is no longer any question whatever.
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